Monday, August 23, 2010

sorry for being out for so long. tons of changes at city hall, summer vacation, blah, blah, blah......

looking for suggestions on this the first of several rainy days in a row and with wet fall and winter coming up. what do all of our readers (and fellow bloggers) do to keep their feet dry? neoprene socks, waterproof shoes (if so, which ones), shoe covers? what?????

as you may be able to guess i have not found a solution, but i would really like to!

Two very inelegant ideas I have tried in the past that worked with varying degrees of success were:

1. Take a long, thin piece of plastic (I used milk containers) and cut out a mud flap to attach to your front fender using nuts and bolts or zip-ties. Obviously this requires putting holes in your fenders, so it helps if they are plastic and you don’t care too much about them.2. If you don’t have fenders you can put on some thin socks and then put plastic grocery bags over your feet and then another pair of socks on over those. I only did this on short trips and for good reason – your feet sweat and the bags trap all the moisture. It does seem preferable, however, to having your feet covered with some type of slush/salt/sand mixture.

Finally I took the (monetary) plunge and bought some neoprene shoe covers. I have found they work very well.

Through the winter I mainly wear a pair of lightweight hunting boots. When it's cold and wet I wear insulated tights and pull the bottoms of them over the top of the boots. The boots are somewhat less waterproof after a couple years of wear but still better than pouring water out of my shoes when I get to work, and then having to put them on again for the ride home.